Pub Date : 2026-01-07DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01884-0
Tom Gleeson, Takahiro Endo, Makoto Taniguchi, Giuliano Di Baldassarre
Groundwater is the largest freshwater resource, supporting drinking water, irrigation and ecosystems. As natural hazards intensify and intertwine with social, political and economic challenges, short-term groundwater use is emerging as a low-cost, rapid and distributed response strategy. Here we discuss how groundwater can be used strategically during and after hazard events while safeguarding long-term sustainability. Examples of earthquake, wildfire, flood and drought events in different regions highlight the potential value of temporarily using existing wells, pumps and aquifers. However, shifts in mindsets, policies and planning are urgently needed, along with interdisciplinary and equity-focused approaches that draw on disaster sociology, environmental justice, sustainability science and sociohydrology. Examples of policy direction and thought leadership from around the world show how groundwater use is emerging across diverse hazard contexts, which could be amplified by future interdisciplinary, equity-focused research. The use of groundwater can help mitigate the impacts of natural disasters, thereby increasing the resilience of communities during and after events, according to a synthesis of hydrology and disaster response research.
{"title":"Natural hazard susceptibilities and inequities reduced by short-term groundwater use","authors":"Tom Gleeson, Takahiro Endo, Makoto Taniguchi, Giuliano Di Baldassarre","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01884-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01884-0","url":null,"abstract":"Groundwater is the largest freshwater resource, supporting drinking water, irrigation and ecosystems. As natural hazards intensify and intertwine with social, political and economic challenges, short-term groundwater use is emerging as a low-cost, rapid and distributed response strategy. Here we discuss how groundwater can be used strategically during and after hazard events while safeguarding long-term sustainability. Examples of earthquake, wildfire, flood and drought events in different regions highlight the potential value of temporarily using existing wells, pumps and aquifers. However, shifts in mindsets, policies and planning are urgently needed, along with interdisciplinary and equity-focused approaches that draw on disaster sociology, environmental justice, sustainability science and sociohydrology. Examples of policy direction and thought leadership from around the world show how groundwater use is emerging across diverse hazard contexts, which could be amplified by future interdisciplinary, equity-focused research. The use of groundwater can help mitigate the impacts of natural disasters, thereby increasing the resilience of communities during and after events, according to a synthesis of hydrology and disaster response research.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 1","pages":"12-18"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145908120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On 6 February 2023, two major earthquakes with moment magnitude (Mw) of 7.8 and 7.6 ruptured multiple segments of the Eastern Anatolian Fault system, resulting in many casualties and extensive property damage in Turkey and Syria. The Mw 7.8 earthquake involved bilateral rupture along the Eastern Anatolian Fault, with at least partially supershear rupture towards the northeast and subshear rupture towards the southwest. The cause of this difference in rupture speed remains debated. Here we present evidence from seismic tomographic imaging linking this difference to structural and stress variations along the fault. Specifically, a low-velocity anomaly and a fault-parallel fast velocity direction of anisotropy in the southwest Amanos–Pazarcık segment suggest fluid infiltration, which could facilitate fault creep and reduce the stress loading rate. By contrast, the Erkenek segment to the northeast is associated with a high-velocity anomaly and fault-normal fast velocity direction, suggesting limited fluid infiltration and increased stress accumulation. Hence, we propose that the contrast in stress accumulation explains the discrepancy in rupture speeds in this earthquake and that fault structure in addition to stress loading may influence stress accumulation and thus whether a fault ruptures at supershear speeds. The difference in rupture speed between fault segments in the 2023 Mw 7.8 Kahramanmaraş earthquake may be explained by the contrasting structure of and stress on these segments, according to seismic tomographic imaging of beneath the fault zone.
{"title":"High normal stress promoted supershear rupture during the 2023 Mw 7.8 Kahramanmaraş earthquake","authors":"Jing Chen, Mijian Xu, Yiming Bai, Shucheng Wu, Xiao Xiao, Shijie Hao, Masaru Nagaso, Hongfeng Yang, Ping Tong","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01893-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01893-z","url":null,"abstract":"On 6 February 2023, two major earthquakes with moment magnitude (Mw) of 7.8 and 7.6 ruptured multiple segments of the Eastern Anatolian Fault system, resulting in many casualties and extensive property damage in Turkey and Syria. The Mw 7.8 earthquake involved bilateral rupture along the Eastern Anatolian Fault, with at least partially supershear rupture towards the northeast and subshear rupture towards the southwest. The cause of this difference in rupture speed remains debated. Here we present evidence from seismic tomographic imaging linking this difference to structural and stress variations along the fault. Specifically, a low-velocity anomaly and a fault-parallel fast velocity direction of anisotropy in the southwest Amanos–Pazarcık segment suggest fluid infiltration, which could facilitate fault creep and reduce the stress loading rate. By contrast, the Erkenek segment to the northeast is associated with a high-velocity anomaly and fault-normal fast velocity direction, suggesting limited fluid infiltration and increased stress accumulation. Hence, we propose that the contrast in stress accumulation explains the discrepancy in rupture speeds in this earthquake and that fault structure in addition to stress loading may influence stress accumulation and thus whether a fault ruptures at supershear speeds. The difference in rupture speed between fault segments in the 2023 Mw 7.8 Kahramanmaraş earthquake may be explained by the contrasting structure of and stress on these segments, according to seismic tomographic imaging of beneath the fault zone.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 2","pages":"223-230"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145903505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-06DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01887-x
Samuel Toucanne, Natalia Vázquez Riveiros, Guillaume Soulet, Pierre-Henri Blard, Amandine Migeon, Vincent Rigalleau, Angelique Roubi, Sandrine Cheron, Audrey Boissier, Laurie Menviel, Helen Bostock
Millennial-scale climate variability in polar ice cores exhibits interhemispheric temperature asynchronicity during the last glacial period, approximately 70,000 to 15,000 years ago. This bipolar seesaw pattern is most pronounced during Heinrich Stadials, which correspond to recurring severe cooling episodes in the North Atlantic region following a weakening of the Atlantic overturning circulation. However, mid-latitude ice sheets and glaciers displayed similar fluctuations in both hemispheres during the most recent Heinrich Stadials, complicating our understanding of interhemispheric teleconnections. Here we provide a continuous millennial-scale record of New Zealand glacier fluctuations over the last glacial period, through the analysis of glaciogenic sediments deposited offshore South Island. We find that millennial-scale glacial retreats in New Zealand occurred during Heinrich Stadials, coinciding with a southerly shift of the South Pacific Subtropical Front inferred from planktic foraminiferal assemblages, and were probably—if not very probably—synchronous (within 1–2 kyr) with enhanced meltwater and iceberg production from the North American and European ice sheets. These findings demonstrate that global retreat of mid-latitude ice masses is a persistent feature of Heinrich Stadials, possibly driven by global energy gain and sustained in the Southern Hemisphere by heat accumulation resulting from the weak Atlantic overturning circulation. Glaciers in New Zealand retreated at about the same time as mid-latitude glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere during Heinrich Stadials, indicating strong global teleconnections during the last glacial period, according to a marine sediment record.
{"title":"Synchronous bipolar retreat of mid-latitude ice masses during Heinrich Stadials","authors":"Samuel Toucanne, Natalia Vázquez Riveiros, Guillaume Soulet, Pierre-Henri Blard, Amandine Migeon, Vincent Rigalleau, Angelique Roubi, Sandrine Cheron, Audrey Boissier, Laurie Menviel, Helen Bostock","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01887-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01887-x","url":null,"abstract":"Millennial-scale climate variability in polar ice cores exhibits interhemispheric temperature asynchronicity during the last glacial period, approximately 70,000 to 15,000 years ago. This bipolar seesaw pattern is most pronounced during Heinrich Stadials, which correspond to recurring severe cooling episodes in the North Atlantic region following a weakening of the Atlantic overturning circulation. However, mid-latitude ice sheets and glaciers displayed similar fluctuations in both hemispheres during the most recent Heinrich Stadials, complicating our understanding of interhemispheric teleconnections. Here we provide a continuous millennial-scale record of New Zealand glacier fluctuations over the last glacial period, through the analysis of glaciogenic sediments deposited offshore South Island. We find that millennial-scale glacial retreats in New Zealand occurred during Heinrich Stadials, coinciding with a southerly shift of the South Pacific Subtropical Front inferred from planktic foraminiferal assemblages, and were probably—if not very probably—synchronous (within 1–2 kyr) with enhanced meltwater and iceberg production from the North American and European ice sheets. These findings demonstrate that global retreat of mid-latitude ice masses is a persistent feature of Heinrich Stadials, possibly driven by global energy gain and sustained in the Southern Hemisphere by heat accumulation resulting from the weak Atlantic overturning circulation. Glaciers in New Zealand retreated at about the same time as mid-latitude glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere during Heinrich Stadials, indicating strong global teleconnections during the last glacial period, according to a marine sediment record.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 2","pages":"195-200"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145903504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nitrogen waste poses substantial threats to global sustainable development through multiple pathways, prompting the United Nations to propose halving nitrogen waste as a means to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the pathways and potential to improve global SDGs through halving nitrogen waste are less well known. Here we use an integrated assessment framework to quantify the cost-effectiveness and environmental impacts of halving nitrogen waste. We show that nitrogen waste is directly and indirectly linked to all 17 United Nations’ 2030 SDGs and that halving nitrogen waste could enhance global SDG performance by 19%. The total societal benefit of halving nitrogen waste could be as high as US$1,379 billion, considering improvements in human and ecosystem health and mitigation of climate change. Whereas implementing control strategies aimed at halving nitrogen waste may cost up to US$1,137 billion, adopting more cost-effective strategies could decrease costs by up to 72%. Our findings provide crucial insights for policymakers and underscore the urgency of developing cost-effective nitrogen-waste-reduction strategies to achieve global sustainable development. Halving nitrogen waste could help meet a broad array of Sustainable Development Goals, with associated societal benefits topping US$1.3 trillion, according to an integrated assessment framework that evaluates cost-effectiveness and environmental impacts.
{"title":"Costs and benefits of halving nitrogen waste for global sustainable development goals","authors":"Peiying He, Xiuming Zhang, Chuanzhen Zhang, Binhui Chen, Sitong Wang, Luxi Cheng, Jinglan Cui, Ouping Deng, Stefan Reis, Cargele Masso, Mahesh Pradhan, Jianming Xu, Baojing Gu","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01874-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01874-2","url":null,"abstract":"Nitrogen waste poses substantial threats to global sustainable development through multiple pathways, prompting the United Nations to propose halving nitrogen waste as a means to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the pathways and potential to improve global SDGs through halving nitrogen waste are less well known. Here we use an integrated assessment framework to quantify the cost-effectiveness and environmental impacts of halving nitrogen waste. We show that nitrogen waste is directly and indirectly linked to all 17 United Nations’ 2030 SDGs and that halving nitrogen waste could enhance global SDG performance by 19%. The total societal benefit of halving nitrogen waste could be as high as US$1,379 billion, considering improvements in human and ecosystem health and mitigation of climate change. Whereas implementing control strategies aimed at halving nitrogen waste may cost up to US$1,137 billion, adopting more cost-effective strategies could decrease costs by up to 72%. Our findings provide crucial insights for policymakers and underscore the urgency of developing cost-effective nitrogen-waste-reduction strategies to achieve global sustainable development. Halving nitrogen waste could help meet a broad array of Sustainable Development Goals, with associated societal benefits topping US$1.3 trillion, according to an integrated assessment framework that evaluates cost-effectiveness and environmental impacts.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 3","pages":"261-269"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145902924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-06DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01883-1
Zi-Heng Li, Zhong-Qiang Chen, Stuart J. Daines, Feifei Zhang, Timothy M. Lenton
The Ediacaran Gaskiers Glaciation (579.78–579.44 million years ago) is the last major climatic event of the Neoproterozoic, but the contemporaneous ocean redox conditions remain unclear. Here we conducted carbon–uranium–sulfur isotopic (δ13Ccarb–δ238Ucarb–δ34SCAS) and elemental analyses on marine carbonate samples from the glacial-to-deglacial succession (equivalent to the Gaskiers Glaciation successions) of the Egan Formation in northwestern Australia. Negative δ13Ccarb and positive δ238Ucarb excursions paired with δ34SCAS and cerium anomaly profiles reveal an extensive ocean oxygenation event. The Gaskiers ocean oxygenation event is the middle of three such transient mid-Ediacaran events, occurring roughly 5 million years apart. Using a model for the coupled biogeochemical cycles of phosphorus, oxygen and carbon, we show that these periodic ocean oxygenation events, associated δ238Ucarb variations and part of the δ13Ccarb variation can be explained by a self-sustaining oscillation in the Earth system. An increase in the organic carbon burial flux plausibly linked to eukaryote evolution at the time could have tipped the Earth system from a stable anoxic ocean regime to an unstable oscillatory regime. A later further increase in organic carbon burial flux could have tipped the system into a stable, modern-like oxic ocean regime. Periodic marine oxygen oscillations occurred throughout the middle Ediacaran Gaskiers Glaciation, probably stemming from increased organic carbon burial destabilizing ocean redox systems, according to geochemical constraints and modelling.
{"title":"Periodic ocean oxygenation events during the mid-Ediacaran","authors":"Zi-Heng Li, Zhong-Qiang Chen, Stuart J. Daines, Feifei Zhang, Timothy M. Lenton","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01883-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01883-1","url":null,"abstract":"The Ediacaran Gaskiers Glaciation (579.78–579.44 million years ago) is the last major climatic event of the Neoproterozoic, but the contemporaneous ocean redox conditions remain unclear. Here we conducted carbon–uranium–sulfur isotopic (δ13Ccarb–δ238Ucarb–δ34SCAS) and elemental analyses on marine carbonate samples from the glacial-to-deglacial succession (equivalent to the Gaskiers Glaciation successions) of the Egan Formation in northwestern Australia. Negative δ13Ccarb and positive δ238Ucarb excursions paired with δ34SCAS and cerium anomaly profiles reveal an extensive ocean oxygenation event. The Gaskiers ocean oxygenation event is the middle of three such transient mid-Ediacaran events, occurring roughly 5 million years apart. Using a model for the coupled biogeochemical cycles of phosphorus, oxygen and carbon, we show that these periodic ocean oxygenation events, associated δ238Ucarb variations and part of the δ13Ccarb variation can be explained by a self-sustaining oscillation in the Earth system. An increase in the organic carbon burial flux plausibly linked to eukaryote evolution at the time could have tipped the Earth system from a stable anoxic ocean regime to an unstable oscillatory regime. A later further increase in organic carbon burial flux could have tipped the system into a stable, modern-like oxic ocean regime. Periodic marine oxygen oscillations occurred throughout the middle Ediacaran Gaskiers Glaciation, probably stemming from increased organic carbon burial destabilizing ocean redox systems, according to geochemical constraints and modelling.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 2","pages":"216-222"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145902920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-05DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01875-1
Guanyu Dong, Fei Jiang, Yongguang Zhang, Weimin Ju, Shilong Piao, Philippe Ciais, Wouter Peters, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Junjie Liu, Frédéric Chevallier, Ning Zeng, Xiangjun Tian, Shamil Maksyutov, Oliver Sonnentag, M. Altaf Arain, Alan G. Barr, Yuanyuan Huang, Chao Yue, Wenping Yuan, Liangyun Liu, Lei Fan, Xu Yue, Jingfeng Xiao, Xing Li, Stephen Sitch, Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O’Sullivan, Jürgen Knauer, Vivek Arora, Daniel Kennedy, Lei Ma, Peter E. Thornton, Roland Séférian, Tobias Nützel, Jens Heinke, Qing Sun, Sönke Zaehle, Philippe Peylin, Etsushi Kato, Haley Alcock, Bruno Lecavalier, Mousong Wu, Jun Wang, Lingyu Zhang, Guoyuan Lv, Yuanyuan Zhang, Dayang Zhao, Jing M. Chen
The response of net forest carbon uptake to warm extremes remains elusive. The year 2023 was at the time ‘the hottest year on record’ globally, with Canada’s forests experiencing warm anomalies of above 2 °C and unprecedented drought and wildfires, providing a unique case to examine the response of boreal forest net carbon uptake to climate extremes. Here we combine satellite-based atmospheric CO2 flux inversions with ground-based in situ observations of CO2 fluxes and concentrations to investigate Canada’s forest net carbon uptake and its underlying mechanisms in 2023. We find that, compared with 2015–2022, Canada’s forest net carbon uptake was enhanced by 0.28 ± 0.23 PgC, offsetting 38–48% of Canadian wildfire emissions in 2023. This enhanced net uptake was dominated by large ecosystem respiration reductions, mainly attributable to severe root-zone soil moisture deficits and the unimodal temperature response of respiration. However, most dynamic global vegetation models failed to simulate the respiration reductions and the responses to hydrothermal conditions well. This study improves our understanding of boreal forest net carbon uptake in response to climate extremes and highlights an urgent need to improve vegetation models under global warming. The extreme hot and dry conditions of 2023 reduced soil respiration and enhanced net forest carbon sequestration in Canada, offsetting wildfire emissions, according to satellite-based and in situ observations of CO2 fluxes.
{"title":"Canadian net forest CO2 uptake enhanced by heat drought via reduced respiration","authors":"Guanyu Dong, Fei Jiang, Yongguang Zhang, Weimin Ju, Shilong Piao, Philippe Ciais, Wouter Peters, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Junjie Liu, Frédéric Chevallier, Ning Zeng, Xiangjun Tian, Shamil Maksyutov, Oliver Sonnentag, M. Altaf Arain, Alan G. Barr, Yuanyuan Huang, Chao Yue, Wenping Yuan, Liangyun Liu, Lei Fan, Xu Yue, Jingfeng Xiao, Xing Li, Stephen Sitch, Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O’Sullivan, Jürgen Knauer, Vivek Arora, Daniel Kennedy, Lei Ma, Peter E. Thornton, Roland Séférian, Tobias Nützel, Jens Heinke, Qing Sun, Sönke Zaehle, Philippe Peylin, Etsushi Kato, Haley Alcock, Bruno Lecavalier, Mousong Wu, Jun Wang, Lingyu Zhang, Guoyuan Lv, Yuanyuan Zhang, Dayang Zhao, Jing M. Chen","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01875-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01875-1","url":null,"abstract":"The response of net forest carbon uptake to warm extremes remains elusive. The year 2023 was at the time ‘the hottest year on record’ globally, with Canada’s forests experiencing warm anomalies of above 2 °C and unprecedented drought and wildfires, providing a unique case to examine the response of boreal forest net carbon uptake to climate extremes. Here we combine satellite-based atmospheric CO2 flux inversions with ground-based in situ observations of CO2 fluxes and concentrations to investigate Canada’s forest net carbon uptake and its underlying mechanisms in 2023. We find that, compared with 2015–2022, Canada’s forest net carbon uptake was enhanced by 0.28 ± 0.23 PgC, offsetting 38–48% of Canadian wildfire emissions in 2023. This enhanced net uptake was dominated by large ecosystem respiration reductions, mainly attributable to severe root-zone soil moisture deficits and the unimodal temperature response of respiration. However, most dynamic global vegetation models failed to simulate the respiration reductions and the responses to hydrothermal conditions well. This study improves our understanding of boreal forest net carbon uptake in response to climate extremes and highlights an urgent need to improve vegetation models under global warming. The extreme hot and dry conditions of 2023 reduced soil respiration and enhanced net forest carbon sequestration in Canada, offsetting wildfire emissions, according to satellite-based and in situ observations of CO2 fluxes.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 2","pages":"145-152"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145903506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-05DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01890-2
Lea Wittenberg
Post-fire soil erosion is a widespread global phenomenon with geomorphological consequences. Quantifying its impacts provides insights to inform and strengthen soil conservation efforts.
{"title":"The geomorphic scar of fire","authors":"Lea Wittenberg","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01890-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01890-2","url":null,"abstract":"Post-fire soil erosion is a widespread global phenomenon with geomorphological consequences. Quantifying its impacts provides insights to inform and strengthen soil conservation efforts.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 1","pages":"7-8"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145902935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-05DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01889-9
Caleb K. Walcott-George, Nathan D. Brown, Jason P. Briner, Allie Balter-Kennedy, Nicolás E. Young, Tanner Kuhl, Elliot Moravec, Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Nathan T. Stevens, Benjamin Keisling, Robert M. DeConto, Vasileios Gkinis, Joseph A. MacGregor, Joerg M. Schaefer
Projections of future sea-level rise benefit from understanding the response of past ice sheets to warming during past Quaternary interglacials. Constraints on the extent of inland Greenland Ice Sheet retreat during the Middle Holocene (~8–4 thousand years before present) are limited because geological records of a smaller-than-modern phase largely remain beneath the modern ice sheet. We drilled through 509 metres of firn and ice at Prudhoe Dome, northwestern Greenland, to obtain sub-ice material yielding direct evidence for the response of the northwest Greenland ice sheet to Holocene warmth. Here we present infrared stimulated luminescence measurements from sub-ice sediments that indicate that the ground below the summit was exposed to sunlight 7.1 ± 1.1 thousand years ago. This proposed complete deglaciation of Prudhoe Dome, coeval to reduced extent at other ice caps across northern Greenland, is consistent with interglacial-only δ18O values from the Prudhoe Dome ice column and ice depth–age modelling. Our results point to a substantial response of the northwest Greenland ice sheet to early Holocene warming, estimated to be +3–5 °C from palaeoclimate data. This range of summer temperatures is similar to projections of warming by 2100 CE. The ~500-metre-thick Prudhoe Dome in northwestern Greenland completely deglaciated 7,000 years ago, highlighting the sensitivity of the ice sheet to mid-Holocene warming, according to luminescence and geochemical data from sub-ice sediments and ice cores.
{"title":"Deglaciation of the Prudhoe Dome in northwestern Greenland in response to Holocene warming","authors":"Caleb K. Walcott-George, Nathan D. Brown, Jason P. Briner, Allie Balter-Kennedy, Nicolás E. Young, Tanner Kuhl, Elliot Moravec, Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Nathan T. Stevens, Benjamin Keisling, Robert M. DeConto, Vasileios Gkinis, Joseph A. MacGregor, Joerg M. Schaefer","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01889-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01889-9","url":null,"abstract":"Projections of future sea-level rise benefit from understanding the response of past ice sheets to warming during past Quaternary interglacials. Constraints on the extent of inland Greenland Ice Sheet retreat during the Middle Holocene (~8–4 thousand years before present) are limited because geological records of a smaller-than-modern phase largely remain beneath the modern ice sheet. We drilled through 509 metres of firn and ice at Prudhoe Dome, northwestern Greenland, to obtain sub-ice material yielding direct evidence for the response of the northwest Greenland ice sheet to Holocene warmth. Here we present infrared stimulated luminescence measurements from sub-ice sediments that indicate that the ground below the summit was exposed to sunlight 7.1 ± 1.1 thousand years ago. This proposed complete deglaciation of Prudhoe Dome, coeval to reduced extent at other ice caps across northern Greenland, is consistent with interglacial-only δ18O values from the Prudhoe Dome ice column and ice depth–age modelling. Our results point to a substantial response of the northwest Greenland ice sheet to early Holocene warming, estimated to be +3–5 °C from palaeoclimate data. This range of summer temperatures is similar to projections of warming by 2100 CE. The ~500-metre-thick Prudhoe Dome in northwestern Greenland completely deglaciated 7,000 years ago, highlighting the sensitivity of the ice sheet to mid-Holocene warming, according to luminescence and geochemical data from sub-ice sediments and ice cores.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 2","pages":"189-194"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145902934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-05DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01876-0
D. C. S. Vieira, P. Borrelli, S. Scarpa, L. Liakos, C. Ballabio, P. Panagos
Wildfires affect land surface and post-fire geomorphological activity worldwide, increasing surface runoff and soil erosion. However, a global quantitative assessment considering the cumulative effect of several wildfires is still missing. Here we present a global assessment of post-fire soil erosion, considering cumulative wildfire-driven geomorphological changes over the last two decades. We estimate global trends of post-fire soil erosion using a global database on wildfire occurrence and fire severity, and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model together with the recovery of those burned landscapes by remote sensed data. Our results show that when considering multiple wildfire events, global post-fire soil erosion accounts for 8.1 ± 0.72 Pg annually, representing 19% of the global soil erosion budget and an additional 5.1 ± 0.56 Pg soil erosion annually in comparison to pre-fire conditions. Moreover, soil erosion attributed to the first post-fire year represents 31% of the total soil erosion, whereas the remaining share can be attributed to previous wildfire occurrences. Globally, Africa is the continent that is impacted the most in terms of post-fire soil erosion, given its substantially larger burned area. Our results illustrate the magnitude of post-fire soil erosion globally and therefore support post-fire management actions towards the mitigation and restoration of affected areas and policies towards land-degradation neutrality. Global post-fire soil erosion accounts for approximately 8.1 ± 0.72 Pg per year, or 19%, of total global soil erosion, and Africa is the most impacted continent given its larger burned area, according to a global assessment of soil erosion produced by wildfires over the last 18 years.
{"title":"Global estimation of post-fire soil erosion","authors":"D. C. S. Vieira, P. Borrelli, S. Scarpa, L. Liakos, C. Ballabio, P. Panagos","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01876-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01876-0","url":null,"abstract":"Wildfires affect land surface and post-fire geomorphological activity worldwide, increasing surface runoff and soil erosion. However, a global quantitative assessment considering the cumulative effect of several wildfires is still missing. Here we present a global assessment of post-fire soil erosion, considering cumulative wildfire-driven geomorphological changes over the last two decades. We estimate global trends of post-fire soil erosion using a global database on wildfire occurrence and fire severity, and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model together with the recovery of those burned landscapes by remote sensed data. Our results show that when considering multiple wildfire events, global post-fire soil erosion accounts for 8.1 ± 0.72 Pg annually, representing 19% of the global soil erosion budget and an additional 5.1 ± 0.56 Pg soil erosion annually in comparison to pre-fire conditions. Moreover, soil erosion attributed to the first post-fire year represents 31% of the total soil erosion, whereas the remaining share can be attributed to previous wildfire occurrences. Globally, Africa is the continent that is impacted the most in terms of post-fire soil erosion, given its substantially larger burned area. Our results illustrate the magnitude of post-fire soil erosion globally and therefore support post-fire management actions towards the mitigation and restoration of affected areas and policies towards land-degradation neutrality. Global post-fire soil erosion accounts for approximately 8.1 ± 0.72 Pg per year, or 19%, of total global soil erosion, and Africa is the most impacted continent given its larger burned area, according to a global assessment of soil erosion produced by wildfires over the last 18 years.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 1","pages":"59-67"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01876-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145902933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-02DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01873-3
Qianru Zhang, Yuhang Wang, Maodian Liu, Young-Hee Ryu, Mingxu Liu, Huoqing Li, Si-Yi Wei, Junfeng Liu, Shu Tao, Xuejun Wang
Nitrogen is indispensable for global food production and ecosystem carbon sequestration, but excess nitrogen leads to water eutrophication, soil acidification and air pollution. Atmospheric nitrogen deposition is a key yet uncertain component of the biogeochemical cycle. Currently, global networks monitoring particulate nitrogen dry deposition rely mainly on measured concentrations and modelled dry deposition velocities, which remain poorly constrained. Here we develop a spatially explicit dataset by integrating observation-constrained size distribution and dry deposition mechanisms to re-evaluate atmospheric nitrogen deposition across China. We reveal that atmospheric chemistry models underestimate the particle size of fine-mode nitrogen-containing aerosols in China by more than twofold. Additionally, dry particle deposition velocity estimates with different mechanisms diverge by up to two orders of magnitude. Our corrections indicate that atmospheric chemistry models and China’s observation network underestimate particulate nitrogen dry deposition by 2–5 times. Furthermore, most Earth system models underestimate particulate dry deposition of ammonium, a major nitrogen species, by 31%–98%. By integrating these corrections into the Community Land Model, we demonstrate that the effect of nitrogen deposition on China’s terrestrial net ecosystem productivity may have been underestimated by 9%–13%. As China contributes nearly 20% of global nitrogen deposition, its impact on terrestrial carbon sinks and ecosystem health could be greater than previously recognized. Atmospheric chemistry models and observation networks in China may underestimate particulate dry nitrogen deposition due to inadequate representation of the particle size distribution and dry deposition mechanisms, impacting nitrogen deposition modelling used for public health decisions and climate change projections.
{"title":"Underestimation of particulate dry nitrogen deposition in China","authors":"Qianru Zhang, Yuhang Wang, Maodian Liu, Young-Hee Ryu, Mingxu Liu, Huoqing Li, Si-Yi Wei, Junfeng Liu, Shu Tao, Xuejun Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01873-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01873-3","url":null,"abstract":"Nitrogen is indispensable for global food production and ecosystem carbon sequestration, but excess nitrogen leads to water eutrophication, soil acidification and air pollution. Atmospheric nitrogen deposition is a key yet uncertain component of the biogeochemical cycle. Currently, global networks monitoring particulate nitrogen dry deposition rely mainly on measured concentrations and modelled dry deposition velocities, which remain poorly constrained. Here we develop a spatially explicit dataset by integrating observation-constrained size distribution and dry deposition mechanisms to re-evaluate atmospheric nitrogen deposition across China. We reveal that atmospheric chemistry models underestimate the particle size of fine-mode nitrogen-containing aerosols in China by more than twofold. Additionally, dry particle deposition velocity estimates with different mechanisms diverge by up to two orders of magnitude. Our corrections indicate that atmospheric chemistry models and China’s observation network underestimate particulate nitrogen dry deposition by 2–5 times. Furthermore, most Earth system models underestimate particulate dry deposition of ammonium, a major nitrogen species, by 31%–98%. By integrating these corrections into the Community Land Model, we demonstrate that the effect of nitrogen deposition on China’s terrestrial net ecosystem productivity may have been underestimated by 9%–13%. As China contributes nearly 20% of global nitrogen deposition, its impact on terrestrial carbon sinks and ecosystem health could be greater than previously recognized. Atmospheric chemistry models and observation networks in China may underestimate particulate dry nitrogen deposition due to inadequate representation of the particle size distribution and dry deposition mechanisms, impacting nitrogen deposition modelling used for public health decisions and climate change projections.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"19 2","pages":"137-144"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2026-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145895091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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